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Increase Your Productivity by 100%

right. So today we're going to start with something that I know is very close to most of us hearts, some of us confused with being busy with being productive. I really believe that many of us as one of my mentors, Victoria LaBalme, says, We kind of compete in this world today and how busy we are. As she always says. Sometimes we're busy sometimes or crazy, busy, sometimes or crazy, busy, nuts. And so I want you to think for a moment what you do, usually just in the first hour of every day. What are all the task you need to do? So, Sheena, let's start with you. If that's okay when you get up in the morning, what's the first work like thing do you do? What's the first couple Work like things you dio? I checked my email. Jeff Green Mill. I check Facebook. You check Facebook. Um, and then usually it's checking the mail and checking the message machine on the phone of the store. Excellent. I'm so excited can really gonna be able to help you today. All right, Arena, what do you do? First thi...

ng, and that's very common. Shane. A right Reno. What do you do? First thing? Well, it trapped me my my alarm on my phone and then I turn on my phone and I post on Facebook post. I think that's the first thing you do. It's the first thing you do OK? And care. What about you? I check email, Chuck, email. I go to Facebook, go to Facebook, and I look at Web site metrics. I really think the folks at Facebook we're really excited about this conversation, Right? So what about you check the email, check the market, check voice mail, um, and then like down what I need Teoh do do for today. All right, These are very common things that most of us do. And I have to tell you, it's really keeping us busy, but it's not getting us very productive. There actually is plenty of time to accomplish all the important things that you want to do every single day, and I'm really going to show you how to do it. The biggest problem is yourself and again. We showed the slide yesterday, but I know that arena loved it so much. We got to show it again, right? We have a tendency with the things that we actually take on. It holds us back from being productive. I always say that we've met the enemy and it's us, and this is actually a picture May fighting for my black belt last year after a five hour test and having fight 25 different people. So I think I look pretty tired. I remember during that that actual fight afterwards, my mother law, she comes in, he says. You know, I was so nervous that you were gonna have a heart attack during that fight. If you had a heart attack, what would my daughter do? So But we really the enemy really is us. There's no one holding us back from being productive except ourselves. We can't blame it on Facebook. We can't blame on email. We can't blame on the people interrupting. We have to be able to control who we are. And here's some of the symptoms, right? You're getting less done. Despite we're doing furious multitasking. We're doing multiple things at a time. Your day is filled with distractions, and, in fact, one of my friends, Chris Brogan, he always talks about that. We actually go looking for distractions because we live in an interruption based culture and we're getting used to that. And the last thing is, every single day, you don't really have a plan that you commit to and you stick to something really gonna show you how to do that. So, of course, with most things, there's 10 things that you got to do in order. Be more productive in your day. So I say first things first and this is probably the most important part of the day, is you? Don't start your day with distractions now I think that as we talked about yesterday, social media as a purpose. Email is a purpose, but that's not the way that you should start your day. The way you should actually start your day is the way that you endured day the day before, right which have to do is write down the two things that have to happen the next day that you have to get done. You're too critical success factors. Remember how we listed yesterday to keep in your mind? What are the three critical success factors for my business? CF one, cf two and C F three You have this side on a daily basis, whether to things you want to get done, that fit within those critical success factors. You decide them the day before, and then you work on those before you do anything else before you turn your email before you check the market. You work on those two and you work on for maybe a now or so. Now, why don't I say two things? Not just one. Many times we have a task to do the next day, but then we get started. The task. We really can't complete it without something else happening. So we're kind of stuck. So really, the two things you have one and then really one backup. So think for a second you're all going to go back to your offices tomorrow and you're gonna want you to think about the two things that you want to get done. So take a minute and write down those two things that tomorrow morning that you're gonna get done before you get distracted by Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, voicemail or the market. So take him and do that and all of you following out there again, take a piece of paper and think about tomorrow where the two things you're going to write down This is a habit you must get into if you're gonna be productive. Because if you actually or when you accomplish those two things, your day will be productive. Because once you get that done, the rest of days a bonus, right? So, Karen, you're done. What? Two things tomorrow that you feel you got to get done that fit within the critical success factors of your business and remind everyone again what your business is. Business is Yogi stream dot tv, live on streaming yoga, and the two things I have to get done is clean my desk and pay bills. Gotta clean your desk and pay bills. Let's talk about that. So why are those the two important things that fit into the cradle successfactors of your business again going back to Judy yesterday and the mess in your message when my desk is clean? I am so much more productive and things will go really well for a while. My desk will be extremely clean and I'll get a lot done. And then all of a sudden, the busy nous that you talked about Oh, I'll just set this down. I'll just set this down. That starts to happen. And next thing you know, you can't see an empty space on my desk and things have piled up. And then I do it all over again. I make myself sit down and clean my desk. Now, remember, when we have those two things, we're gonna have to things right. There's the first thing, the second thing we're gonna do those sequentially, not together. We're going to focus on doing one thing at a time member. Yes, I was talking about striving for minimal achievement, how much power you get by focusing. So, Arena, what is your two? After hearing what carrying was saying, you know, I should really clean my desk to think about whether it will give him a real sex tractor. Your business, whether two things you got accomplished tomorrow, right? The two things that I absolutely need to finish tomorrow are putting together my sales letters and putting together my media kits with those sales waters. Right? Right. So again, keep thinking about cruise's sex factor. So for me, many days, my two things look like I need to write this article for American Express. And then I need to prepare Ah, presentation that I'm doing the following day. I have to get these two things done because guess what. This is due on Tuesday and I'm presenting on Thursday. So if I get those two things done before I do Facebook Twitter, LinkedIn email, your day will definitely productive. Alright chain and what do you have? I need to follow up on special orders and write out some purchase orders that I need to get submitted. And why are those critically important to you? Because it's an order that a customer needs right away. And if you don't order it now, it's not gonna come in on time, right? We don't want the whole harmonica thing to happen again, right? I also need to prepare teacher and voices cause we pay them at the end of the month. And so we're creeping up on the end of the month. And better to be prepared than wait until next week. Now the teacher invoices or people that teach classes for for your sentence. So if you don't pay them, that's a problem. Yes, right. So again, that's a critical thing. He'll go. What about in your world? Um, boring up his top five prospects Because the first thing and then creating four proposals that I'm presenting the following week. And if you don't create the proposals, then you're not able to present the following week. So again, keep in mind the two things that you guys. All right, We're gonna get Kristen salad Here s O. R. Classes over today. I know you want to go to 1/3 day, but tomorrow, Chris, what's on your agenda? 1st 2 things before you check all your fan mail from today. Well, how? Sleeping in first. All right, there we go. That's a big one. I support that. Yeah. No, I mean for me. And we talked about yesterday about, you know, I don't check my email first thing. I really want nothing to do with that in the morning. First things for me are taking care of myself physically getting a good breakfast. You're going for a run, Getting outside, doing something like that. Those are always at the top of my list. Excellent. Sally, what about for you? Wow, I'd like that. That sounds great. That sounds very healthy. Oh, yeah. I think I am guilty of checking the email and on guy get depressed by the email that I think got a nice book. But again, you know, I am going to get my story together. I thought that deafness stuff was incredibly relevant, and it might help me look at the different businesses I do and pull something together a little conclusive. Important. Remember, you have to be very, very protective of your world, right? And all these other interruptions are gonna try to enter your world every single day, and you've got a fight to really get them out. That's the first. That's the 1st 2 before we get on that. A lot of people have questions about due to do list really work right? And so who here uses to do list and how do you use them to use those Sally, How do you use them? And you have a B's and C's different colors. They have different sticky notes, what he had to try and put a hitting and in some sub stuff. But by the summer I'm halfway down the page. I realized that I just wasted a whole lot of time, and it was ridiculous activity. And in the heart of the next day Random. Yeah. Who else uses to do this? Yes, Karen. I used to do lists, but then I lose. The to do list is what ends up happening more often than not a little problem. They work when I'm extremely busy and have a lot that I need to get done. And I really will sit in line out what I need to do just so that I can forget about what I need to do. So it opens my brain up a little bit for some space to do the things Tiana. Yeah, we used to do us a lot more because I create my own things that I need to get done. And then I'm also given other tests by my partner that, uh, that need to get done as well. So and usually I have to get his things owns first. Good. Then I can concentrate on what I want to do, right? Here's the problem with to do lists many times, what we do is we have all these different kinds of things our to do lists and usually they're mawr than you can Even get done an entire month or sometimes entire year, and what we do is we label them A or B's or C's or D's, whatever it is. And that really doesn't work. What my suggestion really is when you put together a to do list, put together your tasks in one area, right? You have your task here. Label the two things you want to get done. A. Everything else is everything else and then divided into calls that you really have to make or phone calls or email follow ups or things like that. Divide those two things out because their time to do these tasks and their time to make all those calls, which are very, very short burst kinds of things because what you need to do is need to divide your day into. I'm gonna spend an hour or two doing this focus, and then I could be interrupted, and I can kind of do this. Answer emails and Facebook's and whatever else we want to dio the role of routine and ritual, I believe in getting things done is actually very important. It's especially important French pairs of small business owners since most of our days are filled with all sorts of unexpected things. Let's talk a little about what rituals and routines the U value in your day. What do you do exactly the same every single day? Now we know what Chris does, right? Chris gets up. He eats healthy, right? So you wouldn't believe that Chris is actually 75 years old. I mean, really unbelievable. Gracefully. His routine is really done. Well, what kind of routines do you do in the morning? I usually first thing in the morning because I leave earlier than my partner everyday. And he usually is the one like you, Karen toe. I'll just set this right here. And then I'll set this here and I'll come back to it and deal with it later, and he never comes back and deal with it later. So I usually end up cleaning off the front counter the very first thing in the day, because I do like a clean work space, and I like to be ableto set something down on paper that I'm working on or invoice and not have clutter and things around me. So usually cleaning off the desk and the front first thing front counter. First, you have a way to go. Okay, well, it says routine that they dio Karen before I begin anything work related, I will do some kind of a work out whether I go and lift weights, do boot camp, do yoga, do physical activity of some sort for me before I actually started any work for the day. Now, routines are important because they honestly keep you stuck. But they put you in a certain place. So what? My point is that if you get into a routine of doing now, it takes about three months to get this routine going down. If you get to routine of the night before thinking all right here, the two things that I must accomplish the next day for anything else goes on, you will be a heck of a lot more productive now. I mentioned this yesterday. I always love with Steve. Jobs said as we mentioned Walter Isaacson book about Steve jobs. He talked about used have manager meetings every single Monday. And he didn't tell you this man team we gotta doom or more, more, more. He said that we actually have to do less. Would you have to think about is how in your business can you actually do less but accomplished more? And I know sometimes it's hard to wrap around your head around it. But remember, doing mawr Multitasking doesn't work by trying to accomplish mawr. We actually get less things done. Well, all right, so Number three is you've got to make decisions and take action. I think many times what we do is we put off making decisions that we really have already made. We just don't want to verbalize them out loud. So let's do an example. Who here has a decision that they're mulling over that they have yet to make who has a certain decision? Go ahead, Arena. So, um, one of the things that I had incorporated early on in my businesses video production for small businesses, but on Lee for their own business, not Inc with everything else that my production company does just with my show and all the other things and I I've built around that, and so I'm deciding on whether or not I even want to continue to do that because it takes a lot of time. I do all my own editing I do all my own embeds and CEO and all that other stuff. So I'm debating on whether not even want to do that anymore and just focus just solely on the people that would be relevant for the show that I produce. So what's the decision between this and what with the missing? Well, between incorporating into part of my production company are not having it all incorporating what, uh, personal video production for small businesses, Whether they are relevant, Teoh the content of my show or not. Okay. And so what you gonna dio? You've already made this issue in your mind. You're gonna dio I probably will stop offering that. So right, so you know what the right decision is? I believe that we make a decision instant, and then we spend the rest time justifying, and that is a waste of time. I don't mean that you should make decisions really quickly, But remember we did this thing yesterday with the help of our sailor over here, Sally. Right? The way you make progress is to take small risks and small steps, right? We're tacking across on ocean or if you're from the Midwest, the lake right. You're making a decision. You get to hear your value would happen. You making those is you get to hear your value, make a decision, so keep making small decisions. If you can make small decisions immediately, you won't take the big risk of making large decisions. All right, so number four is and this is a really big one deal with every email once. All right, so we're gonna have a little bit of poll here. Who here has more than 100 emails in their in box? All right, guilty as charged. What about 500? Whoa. It's quite the Chris. Yeah, Yeah. All right. What about 1000? Oh, my God. What about 2500? 5000? Oh, here we go. We got Karen and Sally vying for lead. There's gonna be a huge price here. What about 10,000? I don't want to think about so sadly has some number that we don't really don't think about. But I would say that you would probably compete with my wife having a number inbox. Now it actually hurts us, right? Because what we do is when we look at email on me, erase this This is just kind of how our brains work. I get I get email during the day, and this is email one this email to this email three this email for this email. Five. And what happens is, as I'm looking at my email, I always scan it from the top down. So even though I've probably already read this, but I haven't deleted it or filed it, I'm still reviewing it again. And so that really is a waste of time. So this is what we really gotta dio You got to make sure that you'll deal with every email once that you do something with it, right? You either delete it, put it into a follow up folder, right? Or then set a follow up the whole goal. And I'm gonna issue a challenge today to Sally Dominguez. Right? Sally, I really want to get you to get down to zero e mails, right? 6536. 6537. Wow. I mean, that is pretty close to what my wife, Sarah has. I think you guys are neck and neck. All right. So I want you to commit today getting down to zero, right? That you're gonna put him into folders. Can you do that? I think I can. Okay, How long do you think it will take you to do that? You're witnessing in front the entire world. Salley at Salley Dim inks, uh, along that Take you 30 days. Oh, yeah, Yeah, I guess if I put it on my to do list every day Well, what do you want to said, Sally? Alright, guys, let's say this. Let's let's site by July 30th. Can I hope that has that we do it by July 30th right? I think I can do. And if Sally doesn't do that, then she's gonna make a small donation to the the chats Favorite charity house. That right? But this is really important, because email, while can be very productive. It can be really be a time suck. So you really have to get control over email. And I'm not saying that every day you should get it down to zero, but I really believe that the end of every week you should have them in folders or delete them. There's a lot of stuff that we never ever read. You can make that decision in an instant. So there's a lot of great software out there that will actually help you with this. I've worked with both of these companies called Infusion Soft and Constant Contact. They will really help you with all your email marketing. Alright, so number 51 thing at a time. I really want to implore all of you that you have to forget multitasking. In my opinion, multitasking actually causes brain damage Right now. I have no scientific proof for that. But it does drive you crazy. And the problem is, is that technology is pushing us to multitask born more and more. And what happens is is that we're constantly getting inundated by buzzers and bells and things like that. You have to shut off all those alarms and take some time on your smartphone to use the Do not disturb button. Right? So you don't get disturbed during those period times and remember that there are costs to making rushed decisions and I blew the multitasking. Does Russia's Yes, Tiana Very good. Um, well, I have to say for most women, and I'll speak. I think for most women that pretty good at multitasking, but my job at times will require me to almost have to. Multi task is there's times when I'm at the store by myself. And so it'll be quiet for a while. And so I think. Okay, I'll work on building today, and I'm working on that, and a customer will come in. I have to set that aside and I have to deal with the customer, and then I have to go back to that, right? That is not so my mind in my mind, that is not multitasking. Multitasking is doing to form or things simultaneously. I don't mean that. You're saying, OK, I'm working on billing now, Customer kind of focusing on building. Now customer comes in and I'm gonna focus on them. And I'm not thinking about billing now when the customer leaves. Oh, the the FedEx guys here. Oh, I gotta answer fact, let me focus on the FedEx guy. Okay, Now I'm done with that. Now I have to go back to. That's different. That's focusing on where you're at trying to multiple things that time that I know men investor guilty. We're watching creative life right now, and we're doing multiple things, but you're really losing it. You're not getting as much out of it if you focus on one time. Yes, Arena. So as an example of multitasking would watching this and chatting being multitasking, it is. It is. It is. It definitely is. But again, if you're it depends how your mind works, right? If I'm focusing on this and I said, Okay, I'm gonna leave this for a minute, and I'm gonna go into the chat room and see what's going on versus half listening to both, right? The idea is that where human beings want to switch from one task the other. But many of us are on a conference call and we're on a phone call, and we're really, quite honestly, only half listening. And I think you really gotta focus on one thing of time, because when you do, you bring all your energy to it and you are more productive. And again, it'll be a lot more satisfying. I learned this when I go out in the summer to, ah, the beach on Lake Michigan and I realized their time really doesn't matter. So I focus on tasks, not time. When I just focus on getting the task done where I don't care about the time I get the task done, actually much more quickly. And quite honestly, it's so much more Enjoyably so. All right, so let's go on to number six. The other thing is you have to slow down all of distractions. People are constantly vying for your time and again this comes in the form of either emails or voicemails, or we have all these things. They're constantly popping up on our phones. And the reason we talked about this yesterday, we like that because whenever wanted, we kind of get that little shot of dopamine, right? And it makes us feel really good. But you've got to use the Do not disturb. And I see they're closing your door or turning off the alarms or turning off your phone. I know you don't believe it, but you're not gonna miss anything if you don't check stuff. Foran hour things move a lot slower than you think. Every single year I go on a vacation, unfortunately, going to the cage with my family for two or three weeks there in those two or three weeks, I do not bring, I don't turn on my phone now. Do I miss some opportunities? Yes. What I get out of recharging my batteries is so much more then the opportunities that I miss number seven meetings can be a total waste of time in order to make sure that every meeting is worthwhile. Always go to a meeting with an agenda. Set time limits and stick to them right when you're supposed to start, get started when supposed to end, get end. And here's my other tip. If you have every meeting by standing up, those meetings will last a lot less time than if you're sitting down, because people don't want to just stand around and then have some kind of action plan. We mentioned yesterday this whole idea of delegating to others. We mentioned the Harvard Business Review Case study about who's got the monkey, where your employees or vendors or freelance, that working with you there constantly trying to push their work to you, and you have to make sure that you'll help someone make a decision. But don't take responsibility for work. That's someone else's responsibility. You're not really doing them any favors. Number nine, and I know this is very radical is that I don't believe in the day of technology, especially for the entrepreneur or the small business owner. We actually can separate out our business and our personal life. I think it's pretty impossible. We have to figure out how happily merge those two things together again. It doesn't mean that I don't go someplace to recharge, but you have to figure out how to integrate those things and be happy. That's why it's so important to be passionate and to love what you dio were talking last night met with Miyoko about what is your definition? Success in my definition is, is being will support my family. It's something I love doing. It fits very well into merging the personal professional life. So think about merging the personal sessional life. Do you work to try to separate those out? Or somehow could you feel comfortable merging those things together who feels coupled with a merging together are still struggles to keep them separately? Yes, shayanna, I have to keep them separate at times, but a lot of times I have to keep the merge together only because, um, I'm a musician myself. And so when I'm in my you know, singer, songwriter, side of my life. A lot of what I do at work comes into play in that. So using the equipment from work, things like that, making sure that my schedule work will accommodate me being able to leave and go on, have a gig. But I'm also a single mom. So there's times when I don't get the luxury of having somebody have my kids. When I have something going on at work, I have to bring them with me, and they're old enough that I could do that. And it's flexible enough with my work situation that I can. But at times it does have to come together. What I love about what you talked about is that what who you really are is, you know, you introduce yourself as really the office manager of a music store. But really who you are is your own office manager. Dash musician Dash, Single mom, right? Yes, and I think it's important that we have definitions like that. This is kind of like our whole life, and not just well, you know, I'm a manager of a store, things like that. So think about how you can really merging together because if you confined, if you could be happy doing this, Shanna, you can have a much more integrated type of life, the last thing in which is number 10. And of course, there's a picture of me with my I'm a big electric car fan. So that works out well into what you know Arena does is, you know, I believe there's gotta be some places where technology doesn't enter your life. You know, this could be in your family dinner. This could be on a vacation. This could be, you know, when you entered the gym or for me when I entered the karate dojo, we just don't bring. I just don't bring the phone with me or turn it on. What I really suggest is, if you can get away for a week and not used technology, that's fantastic. But if you're not quite comfortable doing that, what you can do is work the first. If you're on vacation, work the first hour two of that day on work and then put it away until the next day. Now there's no cheating by checking before you go to bed, right, because that defeats the purpose. But there's gotta be some way you can recharge. Remember being unproductive. Being busy is no one's fault except for you. It isn't people gonna try. Take over your day. That's part of your job right now. I love this story. I don't. Have you ever heard of Ronald Wayne? Who out there has heard Ronald Wayne? Any of you guys were Ronald Wayne Will Rana Wayne in 1976 sold 10% of the Apple Corporation for eight, $ anything that would be worth today close to be worth 4 $58 billion. So if you're having a bad day, just think about how would they That was like for Ronald Wayne. So, hey, what? I probably waas remember that this is really important in a small business world. As an entrepreneur, I believe that done is always better than perfect. I don't think anything can really be perfect, but if we can, don't be done. That's really key. So that's how we become really mawr productive. And it's something that you have to really work on every single day.